Western Line School District has achieved a B rating for the first time in district history, according to the Mississippi Department of Education’s 2018-2019 accountability results.
Also in Washington County, Hollandale School District and Leland School District were ranked D and Greenville Public School District was ranked F.
The results won’t be final until they are ratified Thursday by the Mississippi State Board of Education.
These are the broken down results for each district in Washington County:
Western Line School District
Western Line School District achieved the highest rating with a B and was ranked 64 out of 145 school districts, scoring 606 points.
WLSD superintendent Lawrence Hudson said their rating is a reflection of the work they have been doing to improve the school.
“I think the rating of Western Line School District accurately reflects the direction and vision we’re moving toward, which is to become an A district,” Hudson said.
Hollandale School District
The Hollandale School District achieved a D rating and was ranked 100 out of 145 school districts, with 535 points.
Hollandale School District Superintendent Mario Willis said their district was close to receiving a C rating and because of that, he is proud of the school’s efforts.
“Our teachers worked really hard this year in spite of a lot of new changes,” Willis said. “I’m very proud of their efforts. We are only .5 points from a C rating and we shouldn’t hold our heads down. Everyone should be very proud of themselves.”
Leland School District
The Leland School District achieved a D rating with 507 points and was ranked 115 out of 145 school districts.
Leland School District superintendent Jesse King said he doesn’t think the test results accurately reflect the district.
“During the week of state testing, two thirds of the schools were without power. We had to move young test takers to the middle school as well as the high schoolers. We had a 100 percent of third graders to pass the reading gate under normal testing protocol, which is much better than being under abnormal testing protocol,” King said, noting the district petitioned their concerns to the state but there was nothing that could be done.
Greenville Public School District
The Greenville Public School District was F rated and ranked 124 out of 145 school districts. Comments from GPSD were not returned to the Delta Democrat-Times by press time.
The highest scoring district in the state was the Petal School District with 754 points. The are 140 school districts and five charters schools for a total of 145 ranked institutions.
The point system collects scores in proficiency in reading, history and science; growth in reading and math; low growth in reading and math; English language progress; acceleration, college and career readiness; participation rate; and graduation rate.
Hollandale School District has the highest graduation rate in the county at 88%. The average score in each of the proficiency scores is 34.12%.
Leland’s graduation rate is 85.5% with an average proficiency score of 30.24%.
Western Line’s graduation rate is 81.5% with an average proficiency score of 35.6%.
Greenville Public Schools’ graduation rate is 70.8% with an average proficiency score of 27.4%.
The highest rated school in the county is Armstrong Elementary in Greenville Public School District with an A rating and 509 points out of 700 possible. School is the 56th ranked in the state of 644 elementary schools.
Western Line also has an A-rated school in Riverside Elementary and a B-rated school in O’Bannon Elementary.
Leland School Park was a C-rated school and Edna M. Scott was D rated.
Sanders Elementary in Hollandale was D rated.
The other GPSD schools rated C are Weddington, T.L. Weston Middle School, Trigg; D-rated schools are Webb Prep, Coleman Middle, Boyd Elementary and Stern Elementary; and Akin Elementary was F rated.
The highest rated high school in the county was Leland with a C rating and 604 points. Hollandale followed with a C rating and 586 points followed closely by Riverside High School with a C rating and 567 points. O’Bannon was D rated with 507 points and Greenville High School was F rated with 453 points.
Leland and Greenville high schools are considered traditional 1000 point high schools. The other schools are considered non-traditional 1000 point high schools because they include grades lower than 9th. Those non-traditional schools receive a performance classification based on an adjusted scale score.
The elementary schools in Washington County perform the best in science by a wide margin with an average of 63.15% proficiency. They do the worst on reading proficiency at 27.57%.
Washington County elementary students are 31.01% efficient in math.
For all elementary schools in the state:
- Reading proficiency is 41.28%;
- Math proficiency is 45.10%; and
- Science proficiency is 64.27%.
High Schools are scored in reading, math, history and science proficiency.
Leland High school scored 35.4% in reading, 20.9% in Math, 48.3% is history and 55.8% in science.
Greenville High School scored 21.5% in reading, 9.2% in math, 32.5% in history and 45.4% in science.
The averages for the schools scored in the same category as Leland and Greenville are 40.89% in reading proficiency, 43.56% in math proficiency, 52.24% in history proficiency and 62.18% in science proficiency.
Hollandale scored 17.5% in reading proficiency, 36.9% in math proficiency, 63.9% in history proficiency and 57.9% in science proficiency.
Riverside scored 30.4% in reading proficiency, 40% in math proficiency, 59.3% in history proficiency and 54.5% in science proficiency.
O’Bannon scored 18.3% in reading proficiency, 21.3% in math proficiency, 25.4% in history proficiency and 43.2% in science proficiency.
The averages for the schools scored in the same category as O’Bannon, Riverside and Hollandale are 38.61% in reading proficiency, 44.37% in math proficiency, 54.30% in history proficiency and 63.78% in science proficiency.
Going forward
Going into the 2019-2020 school year, several district leaders said they are ready to do what’s necessary to make growth and improvement with their students.
“With all data, we have our strong points and things continued to improve,” Hudson said. “Although WLSD receive a B rating for the first time in this district, our goals are set on becoming an A district. If we are to achieve that goal, we must continue to focus on those areas that the data shows where we need improvement.”
In Hollandale, Willis said the district is going to focus on being more detail-oriented.
“We have to develop a nurturing environment that is aligned with the needs of the students,” he said. “We have to improve the students on a consistent, day-to-day basis. The district cannot have better scores if we don’t help develop better students. We improved our rating for the high school, but our elementary had a decline. Our goal is to continue to improve both schools in the future.”
In Leland, King said he wants to, “address the instructional deficit and to utilize individual lesson plans where everyone would get an individual plan growth.”
About 75% of schools and 70% of districts will be rated C or higher when the Mississippi State Board of Education (SBE) approves accountability grades Thursday for the 2018-19 school year. The grades show a three-year trend of continuous school and district improvement.
The SBE set a goal in 2016 that all schools and districts be rated C or higher. Since that time, the percentage of schools meeting this goal has risen from 62.4% in 2016 to 73.5% in 2019. The percentage of districts meeting the goal has increased from 62.2% to 69.7%.
Over the same period, the number of schools and districts earning an A has more than doubled, with A-rated schools jumping from 88 to 196, and A-rated districts increasing from 14 to 31.
Among the 140 districts and five charter schools, 46 increased their letter grade from 2017-18 to 2018-19. Among the state’s 877 schools, 258 increased their letter grade from last year.
A copy of the spreadsheet with all scores and rankings will be at ddtonline.com.
